Dear AuntMinnie Member,
As the year winds to a close, there's still plenty of news about radiology happening in the world.
For example, this past week Elad Walach of artificial intelligence (AI) developer Aidoc offered his three predictions for radiology AI in 2021. He sees AI adoption next year being driven by a more favorable return on investment for the technology, thanks to recent moves to set up a payment structure for the use of AI in the Medicare and Medicaid systems.
Walach also believes that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could lead to consolidation and more mergers and acquisitions in the AI space as the new year goes on. Learn more by reading his article in our Artificial Intelligence Community.
CT screening complications
CT lung cancer screening could potentially have a big impact on smoking-related deaths from lung cancer, but it still hasn't lived up to its promise. Is it possible that some of the trouble is concern over complications from following up suspicious scans?
When researchers from Texas examined complication rates from CT lung screening, they found a complication rate of 16.6% -- lower than the 22.8% rate in a previous study but quite a bit higher than the 9.4% rate reported in the landmark National Lung Screening Trial.
Another study, this one from Ohio, has found that rates of CT lung cancer screening plummeted during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many individuals postponed nonemergency medical procedures. And a group from Belgium found that patterns detectable on baseline CT scans can predict whether smokers may develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Get these stories and more news about CT in our CT Community.
Image vulnerability
This week's news of a Russian hacking attack on the U.S. government reminds us all of the vulnerability of data stored on the internet. In fact, a recent report by a cybersecurity firm found that some 45 million medical images are freely accessible on unprotected servers on the internet.
Finally, next week is likely to be a short one with the upcoming holiday, but be sure to check in midweek with our annual review of the top 10 stories of the year, based on page views from our members.
